The damp, river-scented earth slipped under his feet. The blare of a
steam clarion, and the bang of a steam-driven drum, sounded, and the
naphtha lamps of the merry-go-round and the circus gleamed through
the fog. The infernal noise jigged on his brain-pan as if every flying
crotchet and quaver stamped like the hoof of a little devil in the
surface of his brain. The smell of the lamps was in his nostrils, and
with it odours of tar and stables and orange-peel.
Six-and-thirty hours had gone by since he had turned his back on
Blackfriars Bridge. It was more than fifty hours since he had tasted
food, and he had spent two days and a night in the open in fog and
rain. He had been hungry, but the pangs of hunger had passed, and he was
conscious of little but a cold nausea. He drew towards the light and the
music mechanically. In front of him, illuminated by flaring lamps (which
sparkled, he thought, as an apple of Sodom might have done when newly
cut), was a placard fixed in an iron frame, with clamps which pierced
the turf. ‘One night only in Reading,’ said the placard. Until then he
had not known his whereabouts.
There was no more custom for the merry-go-round, and its noisy organ
ceased to play. He could hear the band within the circus now, the dull
thud of hoofs on sawdusted earth, and the crack of a whip. A mirthless
voice, with an intention of mirth in it, said, ‘Look out! Catch her!
She’ll tumble!’ A laugh spouted up from the spectators within, and was
half smothered by the canvas of the show. Not far from him was a slit
in the canvas wall, with a pale yellow spirit of light in it. A man came
into the gleam.
‘Now, where,’ the man asked, in a voice of anger, ‘is that boy?
The voice of some invisible person responded in an alternation between a
hoarse bass and a shrill falsetto:
‘Perchance he wanders with the paling moon, where Delos’ tower awaits
the lagging dawn, which fronts not yet her summit, or perchance----’
‘Oh, go to ‘ell!’ said the voice that had first spoken. ‘Where _is_ that
boy?’
‘You might,’ began the invisible person, in a cracked soprano, and
concluded in a tone three octaves lower, ‘have let me finish.’
‘Let you finish!’ said the other. ‘Would you finish? _Can_ you finish?
He stood comically silhouetted--a balloon propped by two monstrous
sausages and topped by a football. ‘Billy,’ he said, in a grave voice,
after a minute’s pause, ‘where is that boy? Miriam can’t do three turns.
If Pauer isn’t here in five minutes, the fat’s in the fire.’
‘Well,’ said the falsetto voice, ‘why don’t you’--the hoarse basso
carried on the phrase--‘send somebody else?’
‘Who am I to send? asked the man in view. ‘I’d give five bob,’ he added,
‘to get him here.’
‘Tell me where he is,’ said Paul, ‘and I’ll get him for half the money,
if I have to carry him.’
The man to whom he spoke turned round and stared at him.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘A hungry vagabond,’ said Paul, ‘willing to earn a meal.’
‘Do you know the town?’
‘No; I’m a stranger.’
‘That,’ said the fat man, pointing, ‘leads to the gate. Turn to the
right, run three hundred yards, and there’s a pub on the left. You can’t
mistake it. Tell Herr Pauer he’s waited for. Sixpence if you’re smart.’
‘Shilling!’ said Paul, half on the run already. The fat man hung fire.
‘Shilling!’ said Paul again.
‘Shilling if he’s here in ten minutes,’ said the other.
Paul ran. The fatigue which had weighed upon his limbs seemed gone. Once
free of the clogging and slippery mire which had been wrought out of the
wet turf by many travelling feet, he raced along the firm high-road at
his best speed. He made a leap into the entrance-hall of the house which
had been indicated to him, and narrowly escaped collision with a man who
was moving smartly towards the street.
‘Hillo!’ said the man, slipping nimbly on one side, and staring at him
as he suddenly arrested himself.
‘Hillo!’ said Paul. He was face to face with the jaundiced man of
Saturday. ‘Are you Herr Pauer?
He was guided to the question by the man’s attire. He was in some sort
of circus uniform, and in act to button a huge shaggy overcoat above it.
‘That’s my name,’ said the other. ‘What brings you here?’
‘You’re wanted at the circus,’ Paul answered, flushing and turning pale
again.
‘All right,’ said Herr Pauer, ‘I’m going there. But what is up with you,
my young friend?’
‘Nothing much,’ Paul answered.
‘No?’ said Herr Pauer, buttoning himself from throat to toes, and
looking at him with a glittering eye. ‘I should have thought quite
differently. Come along with me.’
Paul hung back, but he remembered the earned shilling. There was a
smell of cooking in the house, and he was suddenly ravenous at the
mere thought of food. The two turned into the road together, and walked
smartly side by side. They reached the circus, and Herr Pauer motioned
to Paul to enter.
‘Come in,’ he said, seeing that the youngster lingered.
Paul obeyed again, and was ushered into a small turfy space boxed in
with canvas. A few loose boards were laid upon the ground by way of
flooring. There was a table at one side, on which lay a small circular
shaving mirror, a comb, a stick of cosmetic, and two open pots of
porcelain, the larger one containing chalk, and the smaller half-filled
with rouge.
‘Three minutes,’ said the fat man, thrusting his head round the canvas
partition; ‘and short at that.’
‘All right,’ returned Herr Pauer.
He unbuttoned the overcoat, and let it slip to the ground, drew off
a huge pair of rubber boots, and stood revealed in buckled pumps and
stockings, silk breeches, a white waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a
cut-away coat of light-blue cloth slashed with gold braid. He dipped his
fingers in the powdered chalk, and rubbed his face, looking hard at Paul
meanwhile, and growing ghastlier every second as the white obscured
the yellow of his face. He stooped to the fallen overcoat, took an old
hare’s-foot from one of his pockets, and, dipping it in the rouge-pot,
took the shaving-glass in hand, and, with many facial contortions,
pursued his toilet, looking from his own reflection to Paul’s face and
back again with swift alternation. He pinched a bit of the cosmetic
between thumb and finger, and dressed his eyelashes with it. Then he
carefully drew an arched eyebrow, and paused to look at Paul again.
The single brow gave him a comically elfin look, and Paul grinned; Herr
Pauer drew another eyebrow, touched up his moustache, obliterated the
gray upon his temples, and combed and twisted moustache and hair to his
own satisfaction. Then he sat down on the table, and looked once more
at his companion. Paul looked back at him, but felt his very eyeballs
redden. The band beyond the screen played louder and louder. Then there
came a great roar of applause, and Herr Pauer, keeping an eye on Paul
till the last instant, walked away.
The fat man entered a minute later.
‘The governor says you are to go inside,’ he said, ‘and wait till his
turn’s over. Here’s your bob, anyhow. A bargain’s a bargain, ain’t it?’
Paul accepted the proffered shilling, and slipped it into his pocket.
Then he accompanied his guide, who pushed him through a labyrinth of
props and stays, above which were ranged benches for the accommodation
of the audience. They reached a spot from which they could see the
whole space of the ring through a break between the benches. The fat man
struck Paul as having somehow the look of keeping him in custody. But
Herr Pauer appeared in the circle, and he forgot to think about that
fancy. He wondered what his curiously-encountered chance-acquaintance
was going to do. He had not long to wait, for two men in livery came on
with a table, arranged in all respects as the conjurer’s table had been
arranged in the music-hall on Saturday night, and Herr Pauer proceeded
to play precisely the tricks the conjurer had played. He was just as
adroit and swift and’ agile as the original, and the audience stamped
and laughed and shouted.
‘Ah,’ the fat man breathed in Paul’s ear, ‘the governor hasn’t been away
a month for nothing.’
Paul turned, but his custodian seemed unconscious of him. The
performance reached an end amidst a hurricane of applause, and Herr
Pauer came back several times to bow his acknowledgments. The fat man
seemed to wake, and, with a hand on Paul’s shoulder, pushed him back
amongst the props and stays until they reached the canvas room again.
Somebody had placed a ragged cane-seated chair near the table, and Herr
Pauer, who was already waiting, motioned his visitor into it. He seated
himself on the table, with one trim leg swinging to and fro, and lit a
cigar.
‘Now,’ he said, rolling a cloud of smoke from his lips, ‘what have you
run away from?’
‘I haven’t run away from anything,’ said Paul.
‘Ah, well! we shall see about that. When I saw you on Saturday night
you were flush of money. Now--so my man tells me--you call yourself
a starving vagabond, and you run errands for a shilling. You are wet
through, and you are mud all over. You have no hat, my young friend. You
may just as well make a clean breast of it.’
‘I’ve nothing to make a clean breast of,’ Paul answered sullenly.
‘Oh yes, you have,’ said Herr Pauer. ‘You were very tipsy on Saturday
night. Were you ever tipsy before?’
‘No,’ said Paul.
‘You had money,’ said Herr Pauer. ‘Was it your own?’
‘Yes.’
The answer was defiant and angry.
‘To do as you liked with? Didn’t you owe any of it?
‘I owed something.’
‘Got tipsy. Got cleared out. Hadn’t the pluck to go home. That about the
size of it?’
‘Yes,’ said Paul, ‘that’s about the size of it.’
‘No hat,’ Herr Pauer went on comfortably. ‘Out all night. Sunday
morning. Empty pockets. Religious landlady.’
‘How do you know?’ Paul asked.
‘You told me about the landlady. The rest is easy enough. What are you
going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’
‘You are a shiftless young devil, I must say. Doesn’t it occur to you to
think you _are_ a shiftless young devil--eh?’
‘I think it does,’ said Paul with extreme inward bitterness, ‘now that
you come to mention it.’
‘Come now,’ said Herr Pauer, shifting his seat on the table and turning
to face the lad, ‘you shall not take that tone. I tell you you shall not
take it, because it is a wrong and dangerous tone. You have done things
that you are ashamed of. You shall have the goodness to be ashamed of
them like a man, and not like a fool. Now, what are you going to do?’
‘I can earn a living,’ Paul answered. ‘I’ve got a trade between my
fingers.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m a compositor. I can do a man’s work, if I can only earn two-thirds
of a man’s wages.’
‘That is all very well. But it’s not quite what I mean. You have a
home?’
Paul laid his face in his hands and groaned. He was so ashamed at this
that he had no courage to undo his own act. He sat with his face still
hidden.
‘You will go straight home to-morrow,’ said Herr Pauer, rising from the
table. The culprit shook his head. ‘Tomorrow,’ Herr Pauer reiterated.
The culprit shook his head again. ‘They will kill the fatted calf,’ said
Herr Pauer.
‘Oh, no, they won’t,’ said Paul
His father might be moved to do it, but not the rest. Oh, no, not the
rest. And on the whole he would rather not have the fatted calf. He
would prefer any desolation to forgiveness. Forgiveness must be preceded
by knowledge, and the thought of that was unendurable.
‘Do you reckon,’ asked Herr Pauer, ‘that you are ever going to see your
folks again?’
Paul said nothing, and the circus proprietor moved back to his seat
on the table. The circus band played close by, and at times the people
cheered But in the little canvas box of a room there was silence for a
long while Before it was broken the fat man came with a message.
‘Poor Gill’s no use to-night, governor; his ankle’s worse than ever.’
‘All right,’ said Herr Pauer. ‘I’ll take an extra turn. Tell me when I’m
wanted.’
‘Saltanelli’s off in a minute’
‘I’ll follow.’
The fat man withdrew, and Herr Pauer, having carefully balanced the
stump of his cigar on the edge of the table, went after him. Paul waited
for half a minute, and then stole out The fat man faced him.
‘Where are you going to?’
‘What business is that of yours?’ Paul asked
‘Governor’s orders was you was to stop till he came back again.’
‘Suppose I refuse to stop?’
‘You can make a row if you like,’ the fat man said wheezingly; ‘but the
governor’s orders is the governor’s orders. The governor says, “Keep
that young chap till I come back again.” There’s plenty here to do it.’
‘Very well,’ said Paul, noticing half-a-dozen loungers in the canvas
passage.
He went back and took his former place The savage appetite he had felt
half an hour earlier had gone, and the empty nausea was back again. He
had not heart enough left to care for anything. When the owner of the
tent returned he brought a black bottle in his hand, and one of the
liveried men came in behind him with a jug and glasses.
‘I take one between turns,’ said Herr Pauer--‘never more One is a
pick-me-up. Anything more than one is wrong.’ He poured a stiff dose
of rum into either glass, and looking towards Paul, water-jug in hand,
said, ‘Say when.’
‘None for me,’ Paul answered. ‘I never touched the cursed stuff till
Saturday. I’ll never touch it again.’
‘Nonsense!’ his companion answered, filling up the glass and pushing it
towards him. ‘Your teeth are chattering. Do you think because you have
been a fool in one way that you have a right to be a fool in another?’
Paul sipped and shuddered, but in a second or two--no more--a faint
sense of returning warmth stole through him. He sipped again, and the
faint glow grew stronger. He took a pull which half emptied the tumbler,
and the spirit made him cough and brought the tears to his eyes; but he
felt his numbed limbs again. Pauer had relit the stump of his cigar and
taken his old place on the table.
‘It’s not any part of my usual life-business,’ he said, ‘to do what I am
doing now, but I like odd things, and it is an odd thing that I should
meet you here. Besides that, I have been a fool in my time, and a
fellow-feeling makes us kind. I shall put you up to-night, because
you’re a decent young chap, and a greenhorn. You shall have your clothes
dried and brushed, and you shall be made decent to look at; and you
shall get a hat, and in the morning you shall go home.’
‘You’re very kind,’ said Paul, ‘but I’m not going to take your help on
false pretences. I shan’t go home.’
‘I will chance that,’ said Herr Pauer. ‘Finish your drink and put that
coat on. You’re shivering again.’
Paul obeyed sleepily. Herr Pauer drew a penknife from his pocket and
impaled the last inch of his cigar with it. He sat puffing there, and
sat looking at his guest, or prisoner, and Paul looked at him drowsily
in turn until Herr Pauer’s head seemed to swell and fill the canvas
box. The noise of the band came in gushes, as if his ears were now under
water and now clear of it The head went on swelling, and the sound of
the music grew fainter. He was deliciously warm, and he had a feeling of
being lifted and gently balanced to and fro as if he were in a hammock.
After this he forgot everything until he felt Pauer’s hand on his
shoulder, and started broad awake, with a clear sense that the spaces
close at hand which had been so crammed with life a little while ago
were all dark and deserted.
‘Time to go,’ said Pauer. ‘No, never mind the coat.’
Paul was struggling out of it. ‘I have another.’ He held his arms abroad
to show that he was already provided, and the lad rose to his feet ‘Take
this,’ said Pauer, fixing a rough unlined cap upon his head with both
hands. ‘It will look less odd, and it’s better than nothing.’ He
turned out the lamp to its last spark, and then with a puff of breath
extinguished it altogether. ‘Tu m’attends, George?’ he called to
somebody outside.
‘Che d’addends,’ said a voice at a little distance; and Paul, guided by
Pauer’s hand upon his arm, groped his way towards it.
In the pale light outside the tent, the fog having cleared away, and a
thin strip of moon hanging over the river, Paul dimly discerned a stout,
broad-shouldered man of brief stature, who was half buried in a big fur
overcoat An eyeglass shone faintly beneath the brim of his silk hat
The three made their way across the slippery field, and on to the firm
high-road. They reached the inn to which Paul had run as a messenger a
little while ago, and Pauer led the way to an upstair room where supper
was laid, and a bright fire was blazing on the hearth. The guest needed
no second invitation to be seated, but he made a poor meal, in spite
of the best intentions. His companions disregarded him for a time, and
spoke in a language he did not understand. He tried to disconnect and
isolate their words, but they all seemed to run together. He fancied
that Pauer talked in one tongue and his friend in another, but he knew
later that this was a mere question of accent. When Paul was growing
sleepy again the man with the eyeglass spoke in English.
‘Ask him, then.’
‘My friend here,’ said Pauer, ‘Mr. George Darco, wants a smart, handy
youngster. If you can give us a satisfactory account of how you came
into your present condition, he will find you employment.’
Paul looked from one to the other, and both men regarded him seriously.
He blushed furiously, and his eyes fell.
‘I suppose,’ said Pauer, ‘that you don’t remember much of what you said
to me on Saturday night?
‘I don’t know,’ Paul answered.
‘Do you remember that I told you I was going with my show to Castle
Barfield?
‘No,’ said Paul.
‘Do you remember writing your father’s address in my pocket-book, and
telling me that he would do my printing for nothing if I told him I was
a friend of yours?’
‘No,’ said Paul again. ‘I didn’t know I was so bad as that.’
‘Do you remember a long screed you gave me about manly purity?’
‘No,’ said Paul once more. His voice would barely obey him.
‘You went off in tow with that young woman. Do you remember that?’
‘I know I did. I don’t remember it.’
‘She cleared you out, I suppose?’ ‘Yes.’
‘And you were ashamed to go home? You hadn’t money to pay your landlady?
‘It wasn’t that.’
‘What was it, then?
‘For God’s sake don’t ask me! I can’t bear to think of it.
And then it all came out in an incoherent burst, through savagely choked
tears. He had lost his honour. He was lowered in his own eyes. He would
never be able to respect himself again. The two men stared at all this,
wondering what lay behind it, until on a sudden the enigma became
clear to both of them. The man with the eyeglass laughed like a horse,
whinnying and neighing in mirth unrestrainable. Paul blundered blindly
at the door, but Pauer stepped nimbly and set his back against it.
‘You young idiot!’ he said in a friendly voice, which had a little
quiver in it which was not inspired by merriment.
Mr. George Darco continued to laugh until he rolled from his chair to
the floor. He rose gasping and weeping.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘vos there efer any think so vunny? Oh, somepoty holt me.
I shall tie of it.’
He recovered slowly, and seeing how deeply his laughter wounded the
object of it, he tried to look solemn, but broke out again. Pauer spoke
sharply to him in the foreign tongue he had used before, and he subdued
himself.
‘Go back to your chair and sit down,’ said Pauer, laying a hand on
Paul’s shoulder. ‘Don’t make mountains out of molehills.’
The lad allowed himself to be pushed into a seat
‘It’s all very well for you, you glass-eyed old reprobate,’ said Pauer,
speaking in English. ‘I can understand the boy if you can’t.’
‘You!’ gasped Darco, with a new spurt of laughter. ‘You!’
‘Yes,’ said Pauer, ‘I.’ His tone was angry, and his friend, after a
humorous glance at him, poured out a glass of beer and drank it, but
said no more. ‘Stay there till I come back, said Pauer a minute or so
later. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
Darco made a renewed onslaught on the cold boiled beef, as if he
had been famishing. Paul sat still and stared at the fire. He was a
compendium of shames, and whether he were more ashamed of his crime or
his confession he could not tell. Pauer came back, accompanied by a man
who looked like a hostler. The man carried a lighted candle and chewed
thoughtfully at a straw.
‘You’d better go to bed now,’ said Pauer. ‘This man will show you the
way. When you’re undressed, give him your clothes, and he’ll have them
dried and brushed for you by morning.’
Paul obeyed, and when he had handed over his clothes to the hostler’s
care he went to bed, and listened for awhile to the murmuring voices of
Pauer and Darco, who were now immediately beneath him. His last resolve
before he went to sleep was that in the morning he would go into the
town and try to find work at his own trade; but he had begun to learn
that he was born to drift, and he drifted. His clothes were brought to
him clean and dry, and he turned the false cuffs and the collar he wore,
so that he made himself in his own way sufficiently presentable, and
just as he had finished dressing Pauer came into his room. There was a
plentiful breakfast downstairs, and it was of a better quality than the
aspect of the house might have seemed to warrant Paul did fall justice
to it, and when the cloth was cleared Darco laid writing materials on
the table. He said that his sight was failing, and that he had been
advised to rest his eyes as much as possible. He would be obliged if
Paul would write a letter for him from dictation. He dictated a lengthy
business letter setting forth the terms on which he was willing to
accept the management of a theatrical provincial tour, and when it was
finished he asked Pauer to read it.
‘That’s all right,’ said Pauer. ‘Good legible fist. Well spelled.
Punctuation and capitals all right.’
‘Ferry well,’ said Darco. ‘If the younk man wants a chop, I can give him
one. Dwenty shillings a veek, and meals at the mittle of the tay.’
‘What is the work?’ Paul asked.
‘To be my brivate zecretary,’ said Darco, ‘and to dravel with me through
the gountry.’
‘When am I to begin?’
‘Now,’ said Darco.
Paul sat down at the table, and his new employer dictated a great number
of letters to him, all offering engagements to ladies and gentlemen, at
salaries ranging from one pound to four pounds ten.
‘What’s all that for, George?’ asked Pauer, who was sitting idly smoking
by the fire.
‘That is for Golding,’ Darco announced. ‘Younk Evans takes the
management, but I haf the gontrol.’
‘Getting your hands pretty full, ain’t you, George?’
‘Ah!’ said Darco. ‘Vait till I get my London theatre. I should haf been
in London lonk ako if it had not been for Barton. He gild the boots that
lace the golden legs.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Pauer.
‘Gild the boots that lace the golden legs.’
‘Killed the goose that lays the golden eggs, do you mean?’
‘Man alife!’ ejaculated Darco. ‘I zaid zo.’
‘You said distinctly,’ said Pauer, ‘“gild the boots that lace the golden
legs.”’
‘Ferry well,’ said Darco. ‘I zay zo. Vot _are_ you talking apout?’
Pauer looked at his watch.
‘I must settle up and march, George,’ he said ‘If you carry that
business through, let me know. I’m willing to join.’
He followed his circus, which, as Paul gathered, had made a start at
five o’clock that morning, and Darco and his new secretary took train
for London. The two had a second-class carriage to themselves.
‘You haf lodgings somevares--eh? Darco asked.
‘In Charterhouse Square,’ Paul answered.
‘That is too far away,’ said his employer. ‘I lif at Hamp-stead. You
must get lotchings glose by me. You haf got no money?’
‘No money,’ said Paul.
‘That is a vife-bound node,’ said Darco. ‘Co to your lotchings and bay
your pill. I shall stop it out of your zalery. Then you will gome to me
at this attress.’ He gave minute directions about omnibuses green and
red and yellow, and all these Paul stored away in his memory as well as
he could. ‘Now, berhabs,’ said his employer, ‘you think I am a vool to
gif you a vife-bound node. But if you are not honest I shall be rit of
you jeaply, and I shall know at vonce.’
Paul fired a little at this.
‘If you don’t think I am to be trusted you had better not employ me.’
‘That is all right,’ said Darco. ‘I am Cheorge Dargo. I do things my own
vay. Look here. Are you vond of imidading beobles?’
‘No,’ said Paul; ‘not that I know of.’
‘Don’t pegin on me,’ said Darco. ‘There is everypody thinks he gan
imidade me. All the beobles in all my gombanies dry it on. But bevore
you can imidade a man he must haf zome beguliaridies. Now, I hafen’t got
any beguliaridies, and zo it’s no good drying to imidade me.’
They parted at the London terminus. Paul made his way to Charterhouse
Square, where he was received with marked disfavour. He paid his bill,
packed his trunk--a small affair which he could shoulder easily--and set
put for Darco’s house. It was a little house, but it stood by itself
in a very trim garden, and it was furnished in a style which made Paul
gasp. He had been very poorly bred, and he had never had access to such
a place in all his life before. The bevelled Venetian mirrors in
their gilded frames, the rose-coloured blinds, the rich brocades and
glittering gilding of the chairs, the Chinese dragons in porcelain, the
very tongs and poker and fire-shovel of cut brass, astonished him. He
thought that his employer must be a Croesus. This faith was confirmed
when he was called into the library, where there was a wealth of books,
nobly bound.
‘That gollection,’ said Darco, ‘gost me two thousand bounds. I am still
adding to it. Here is an original Bigvig, the Bigvig of Jarles Tickens,
with all the green covers bound with it up. Here is “Ton Quigsotte,”
the first etition in Sbanish. Here is the “Dreacle Piple,” berfect, from
tidel page to the last line of Revelations. Here is efery blay-pill
that has ever been issued at Her Majesty’s Theatre from the time it vas
opened until now.’ He patted and fondled his treasure with a smiling
pride and affection. ‘They are not to be touched,’ he said, ‘on any
bretext. Nopoty stobs in my house a minute who touches my books. I am
Cheorge Dargo, ant ven I zay a thing I mean it’ He pointed to a door.
‘Through that,’ he said, ‘is a lafadory. You can vash your hands and
gome and haf lunge.’
Paul obeyed, and at the luncheon-table was introduced to Mrs. Darco, a
lean brunette, who by way of establishing her own dignity was sulkily
disdainful of the newcomer. He was glad to escape into the library,
where Darco set him to work on more correspondence--an endless whirl of
it, diversified with family skirmishes.
‘Now, who the tevil has been mettling again with my babers? I haf dolt
eferybody I will not haf my babers mettled.’ Then a dash to the door,
and an inquiry trumpeted up the stairway. ‘Who the tevil has been
mettling with my babers?’
Then a shrill inquiry from above.
‘What’s the matter, George?’
‘Nothings. I know where I but it now. I will not haf my babers mettled.’
Then more dictation, the dictator waddling fiercely across the room and
back again for ten minutes or so. Then a rush to the door, and a new
call upstairs.
‘Who the tevil---- Oh, it’s all right I remember where
I put it.’
Then more dictation, and a third rush.
‘Who the tevil----’
Then a hurricane of whirling skirts upon the stairs, and on a sudden
Mrs. Darco, kneeling on the floor, wrestling both hands above her head,
and shrieking. Mr. Darco darted and shook her as if she had been a
doormat.
‘Get ub! No volly--no volly!’
Mrs. Darco got up and walked soberly upstairs.
‘It is klopulus hysteriga,’ said Mr. Darco, with a startling calm. ‘And
that is the only way to dreat it But I will not haf my babers mettled.’
Then more dictation, until Paul’s mind was crossed by a sudden
recollection.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, diving his hand into his pocket. ‘I
forgot to give you the change out of that five-pound note.’
‘Keep it,’ said Darco. ‘You will haf to look resbegdable if you stay
here. You will haf to puy things.’
‘I don’t like to take it, sir, until I have earned it.’
‘Now,’ said Darco, ‘who do you subbose you are? If you want to stob
here, you will do as you are dold to do. I am Cheorge Dargo. I do not
sbeak to beobles dwice.’
‘Oh, very well, sir,’ said Paul, and went on writing from dictation.
‘Now,’ said Darco, ‘you haf got all the attresses at the foot of the
ledders. Attress an envelope for each ledder, and leave them all oben
for my signature. I am going to zleep for half an hour.’
He plunged into an armchair, closed his eyes, and in a minute he was
snoring regularly and deeply. Paul performed his task, and sat idle for
a time. At the end of the stipulated half-hour Darco ceased to snore,
opened his eyes, yawned and stretched as if he longed to fall in pieces,
and instantly fell to work again. He made Paul read aloud the whole
afternoon’s correspondence, signed each sheet in a hand of clerk-like
precision, but with a great deal more than clerk-like character in it,
saw all the letters and envelopes stamped, rang the bell, and sent his
correspondence to the post.
‘Ant now,’ he said, ‘I haf got to pekin my day’s work.’ Paul stared a
little, but made no answer. ‘You had petter gome with me,’ said Darco.
‘It will help you to learn your business.’
Paul assisted his employer into the big fur coat, assumed his own and
the shabby cap Pauer had given him, and went out at Darco’s heels. A
closed brougham waited in the street. They entered and were driven away.
It was nearing six o’clock by this time, and as they were driven
downhill they came into a stratum of cold yellow fog, through which the
gas-lamps stared with a bleared and drunken look. The vehicle rumbled
along for some three-quarters of an hour, and pulled up in a shabby
side-way strewn with cabbage-leaves and all manner of decaying vegetable
offal Darco rolled out of the brougham, and plunged with a waddling
swiftness into a narrow, ill-lit passage which smelt of escaping gas.
Paul followed, and in half a minute found himself for the first time
within the walls of a theatre and on the stage. The darkened auditorium
loomed beyond the solitary T-bracket like a great sepulchre. A hundred
people, more or less, were gathered on the stage.
‘Act dwo!’ roared Darco at the moment of his entrance. ‘Glear for Act
dwo.’ People began to dribble into the outlying darkness. ‘Do you hear?’
he stormed, clapping his hands together. ‘Glear for Act dwo. Look here,
ladies and chentlemen, I am Cheorge Dargo. I do not zay to anypoty
twice.’
From the moment when he gripped the idea that this was a rehearsal
the place was a fairyland to Paul. Darco stormed round, correcting
everybody, acted for everybody, and a little man, who was barricaded
behind an enormous moustache, and seemed to be second in command, echoed
the chief’s commands plaintively:
‘Oh I say, now, why don’t you? You got that cross marked down last
night.’
‘You’re Binda, are you?’ said Darco, addressing one pale and trembling
young woman who had just tried an entrance. ‘Veil, now, look here. I
don’t sbeak to beobles twice. Binda is a light, high-sbirited kirl She
is all light and laughder and nonsense. See? She gums hob, skib, and
chump. Like this.’
He waddled furiously to the wing and made the entrance. He was
ludicrous, he was grotesque, but somehow he conveyed the idea he desired
to convey. The girl tried again, but failed to satisfy him.
‘Vere do you garry your prains?’ he asked. ‘In your boods?’
The girl began to whimper, and the lieutenant took Darco by the sleeve.
‘Don’t worry her to-night, governor,’ he said. ‘She’s a good little
sort, and her mother’s dying.’
‘Vy the tevil didn’t you zay zo? demanded the manager. ‘How am I to
know? Gif her a zovereign,’ he whispered, ‘and ask her if she vants
anything--bort-wine or chellies. _You_ know.’ Then he turned, roaring:
‘Vere is Miss Lawrence’s understudy? Zing, if you please, Miss Clewes.
I never sbeak to beobles twice. You may go home, Miss Lawrence. Dell
Villips if you want anything, ant I’ll zee to it. Vy the tevil don’t
beobles zay when there are things the madder at home? Now, Miss Clewes.’
The lieutenant was back at Paul’s elbow a minute later.
‘The governor’s a hot un,’ he said--‘he’s a fair hot un when he’s at
work. But for a heart--well, I’m damned if gold’s in it with him!’